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24 Oct 2015

Ozarks - One Thing / Claudine

Reviewed by Shaun C. Rogan

The Ozark Mountains are in the central US and run through the borders of Missouri and Arkansas. There is your geography lesson for today, active listener. The Ozarks, the band, are apparently residents of Portland Oregon which is a thousand miles west nestling as it does on the Pacific Coast and they are back with a new digital 45 of baroque psych pop wonderment. Yeah you heard right. Wonderment.

'A' side "One Thing" comes over like an abridged history of West Coast psychedelic chamber-pop. It's slow driven with a fundamentally sinister harpsichord riff that burrows its way into your head and some very nice slide guitar that rolls around inside your brain like a ball-bearing made of LSD. Vocals are pure 'Smile' era Brian Wilson with nods to The Millenium, Sagittarius, The Moon and other 60's californian luminaries who made it their mission to ingest acid, gaze out at the ocean and then repair to the studio to divest themselves of the wonder they had just experienced (and you know that's no bad thing). The whole caboose is the kind of brain cinema that has you punching repeat on your sound machine. It may have induced some hypnophobia in me but I can't be sure. Short and sweet flipside 'Claudine' may be even better with its waltzy, slow-mo piano driven 70's pedigree melody soothing you out in the most delightful way. It certainly provided balm to my ear with its rather pretty aching minor-key instrumental purring. Like a cat. On your lap. While you sit in a wikka chair and gaze out of the window. I dug it and so will you. Investigate.

There's a new full length album not too far away, but for now, the single is available here as a name your own price download: